It is a great honour to accept the invitations from Tsinghua University and the Central Academy of the Arts in Beijing. For my work with students at these landscape design institutes, I have devised a series of projects. They reflect the spirit in which we have approached the challenges of landscape design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna for over two decades.

Our artistic explorations, which we were able to develop with great academic freedom, led us to the very heart of the social and economic issues represented by "landscape" today.

Looking at our surroundings through the eyes of an artist can alter and enrich the land transporting information.This aspect meets resistance from architects, curators and local politicians. At the same time it brought us recognition as pioneers of a new quality of landscape and as "avant-gardeners".

Our design process is based on decoding the legend of a specific place, developing a core idea and pursuing that initiated change persistently. For landscape design does not end with completing a "site", just as the farmer was never "finished" on the land.

The series IT'S THE LANDSCAPE, STUPID! addresses topics that hold lasting interest for us – historical gardens,rural regions, urban spaces and waste land as well as sports grounds.